Keywords

Compliance, Infringement, Commission, Court of Justice, European Union

Abstract

This thesis is designed to explore the complex question of compliance within the European Union. The European Union relies on the voluntary submission of it members to rules that the organization sets up. Other international organizations operate through this dynamic as well. As such, it is highly important to shed light, through research, on why states comply with the rules set forth by the organizations they belong to. Why do states comply in the European Union? There are many channels of research currently looking at this question. This thesis seeks to examine the European Commission's role in ensuring compliance in the European Union. The Commission is the chief enforcer and monitor within the European Union; as such, it is a critical component in the examination of state's compliance behavior. In order to examine the question of compliance within the European Union a researcher is forced to look at an alternative variable. Compliance is not measurable in a direct fashion and thus some proxy measure must be constructed in order to research it. The conduct of the Commission with regards to suspected and actual Member State violations of treaty obligations offers such a variable. Using data drawn from a variety of sources including the European Commission itself and a framework of research drawn from Mbaye's Why National States Comply with Supranational Law (2001) this thesis finds that no single explanatory variable is responsible for Member State compliance with the rules and laws of the European Union. Rather several factors are at work and must be looked at. This thesis finds moderate support for several hypotheses sourced from the extant literature on the subject of compliance through the models proposed herein. Other hypotheses do not hold up as well under scrutiny.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2005

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Reichert, Shawn

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Political Science

Degree Program

Political Science

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0000539

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0000539

Language

English

Release Date

May 2005

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

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